Jose Fernandez and Empathy
I learned about empathy late, it wasn’t until September 25th 2016, two months before my 23rd birthday that I finally grasped the concept. Before dawn that morning Jose Fernandez’s boat plowed into a jetty, he and two friends were killed instantly.
I didn’t wake up for a few hours but when I did my phone carried the news. I’ve seen celebrities die before, it’s tough to avoid. Like most I was sad when Prince died, wore purple that day and talked about his music, I saw others cry and thought they might be a little crazy. On the morning Jose died I cried, to be honest as I write these words and remember that day there are tears in my eyes.
It’s difficult to explain exactly why he meant so much. I never met him, and it’s more than likely I never would. In a few years he would have been a free agent, most assuredly not returning to the Marlins. I was sad for his mother who lost a 23 year old son, a son that had once saved her from drowning as they made the crossing from Cuba. I was sad for his girlfriend, who had just announced she was pregnant with Jose’s child weeks before. Most of all I was sad for the child, who’d now grow up without what, by all accounts, would’ve been an exceptional father. All of those are what I told the world, and I felt them, but what brought me to tears was something far more personal, shamefully selfish even. There isn’t a word to describe it, at least none that I am aware of, the best description I am capable of is Jose had meant something to me and now he was gone. Not sufficient but it’s what is available.
It must be said that Jose was drunk and his blood contained signs of cocaine when the accident occurred. It’s not certain whether or not he was driving the boat but it doesn’t matter, for many that’s enough to dismiss his death as deserved. Last week, Miami Herald beat reporter Clark Spencer released his book “Jose Fernandez: Passion for baseball, Passion for Life”. The twitter response was heartbreaking yet predictable.
I’ve been on that side before. A few years ago Oscar Tavares died in an eerily similar incident. Home for the winter Tavares was in a car accident which killed himself and his girlfriend, later it became clear that he was drunk when it happened. Since Tavares played for the Cardinals and meant little to me on a personal level the mistake that led to his death obscured everything else. In a very similar way to how others condemn Jose for the way he died, I did the same to Tavares. I’ve since learned that that is an overwhelmingly callous way to see things, but it should not have taken a personal experience to make me see that.
I started this post by saying Jose taught me empathy, that’s a lie. The tricky thing with empathy is you never really learn it from experience. I’ve learned that the emotions from a celebrities death can be very real, but I haven’t learned to understand the emotions of others. It’s a sad truth that we only seem to understand pain once it happens to us personally
